Haresh ‘Harry’ Karia wrote to the helpline to complain about Eden Farm’s erratic deliveries of late.
He regularly orders frozen food and ice creams from the wholesaler for his store, Best-One Harvil Rd PO in Uxbridge, west London. He said: “I called them again this morning enquiring what the problem is and the usual lack of drivers excuse was made – pls don’t tell me they’ve all gone off to Ukraine, lol.
“Two weeks ago I got fed up of continuous cancelled delivery dates and the same is happening again. I placed an order on Friday and since then I’ve been getting messages saying we are unable to deliver tomorrow and will reschedule.”
I contacted Eden Farm and within a day Harry had received a call advising him that delivery was scheduled.
“And praise the Lord, it’s arrived. However, not without a fuss though. Apparently they’ve changed their T&Cs and it’s COD only now. I disputed saying goods have always been left on credit and payments made by bank transfer etc (with current trends, I don’t have cash as vast majority of transactions are by card!) – the account isn’t in arrears or anything and I haven’t been told of their terms but they want payment within 24 hours now. This is getting beyond a joke.”
I put all this to Ben Lawrence, sales director for the company, and after a long chat I got a very full reply on email.
He said: “The weather improvement in the first week of September coincided with some large volume growth from several large customers. Over the past couple of years Eden Farm has improved the business continuity plans to deal with such stresses on our resource with contingencies in place to communicate with customers nightly of delivery confirmation or of an issue for the following day. We undertake this across our national business, and this has served our customers well during hot spells in June where record orders were placed.
“Our RDC in Luton unfortunately had a spate of sickness in the night picking operation, with over 30% of our colleagues unwell for several days which limited our picking operation and what we could get out to customers. The business has moved some picking operations to our Northern sites to support however London customers were majorly affected as we could not ship the goods down. The situation was exacerbated when drivers also fell ill over the past two weeks. Monday 25th had 33 routes planned out however five drivers were absent due to sickness; our back up plans ensured that two-and-a-half of these failed runs were still delivered however many customers had to be moved to today. It is hard to react with agency staff in both these situations as working in -22C temperatures (pickers) and multi drop drivers have many trainings including health and safety so inducting agency staff often takes several days to complete.
“The position has greatly improved, and the Director team are analysing the situation every morning and utilising the national resource to maximise the efficiencies and minimise the impact to the customers.”
He could not however officially comment on Harry’s criticism of the change to his payment arrangements.
But he added: “The local rep has been made aware and can discuss what the customer requires.”
I sent these comments on to Harry who said: “It’s an unbelievable and unfortunate situation that so many staff have fallen ill at the same time which coincidentally affected the ‘mini-heatwave’ we had recently. Just wished they would be more informative rather than just delaying deliveries & making changes to their T&Cs.”
I’d like to add a personal post script to this: I spent 18 years in Northern Canada and I know full well what -22deg C feels like. It’s bluddy cold. And in the searingly hot (brief) summers it was considered dodgy to go out from a severely air-conditioned drugstore (say) into blinding sunshine. It could make you ill.
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